Just to prove there is nothing new under the sun, Butt Foods, a Birmingham based food firm has started making bowls and plates out of dough - and why not the concept has been tried and tested by history. This is and entrepreneurial recycling and updating of the idea.It may save on washing up and is more environmentally friendly than paper plates.
The company is already supplying a chain of pubs with prawn cocktail-filled bread bowls and says that later this year a leading supermarket is planning to sell its microwavable naan bowl filled with chicken tikka masala.
The bowls can apparently hold their shape for eight hours without going soggy.
The technical term for such a thing would be trencher.
In medieval times trenchers were plates cut from (dried or stale) loaves of bread. Food and such were served on them. People ate off them.
At banquets used trenchers, soaked in rich gravy and sauces with food remains were presented to the poor, or thrown to the dogs.
You can still get dry‘village bread’ in Greece with tomato and feta served on it, though the whole thing is usually on a plate. The Cornish pasty originally embodied a similar but more mobile lunch box type concept.
4 comments:
The technical term for such a thing would be trencher.
I thought that was a noun denoting someone who blogged about the bias within the BBC?
Not heard that one - it may be.
It can also be, a wooden platter for serving food, a mortar board, or a person who digs trenches. But before all these…
Trenchers were not given to the poor or thrown to the dogs; they formed an important part of the servants' remuneration, as did candle stubs and partly burned coals.
William, Thanks - Do you have a link to the reference? I would be interested in reading it. Packrat mind.
It has a certain ring of truth to it - but I suspect both may have some truth, depending on the circumstances, time and place.
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